Franz Beckenbauer tips Marco Reus to leave Dortmund for a bigger club

The last thing Borussia Dortmund want to hear when a new season is about to kick off, is a prediction from wealthier rivals, Bayern Munich, that they will be unable to retain their best players.

So you can imagine how they’ll be feeling today on hearing that Bayern president, Franz Beckenbauer, has forecast the departure of Marco Reus within the next 12 months.

Bayern, who have tended to use their domestic rivals as a feeder club in recent years – witness the signings of Robert Lewandowski and Mario Gotze in the past two seasons – have been linked with Reus ever since the 25-year-old playmaker rejected a new deal with Dortmund earlier this summer.

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“I can imagine him at Bayern very well.

“If you can get a player of his class, you need to try it. If he doesn’t go to Bayern in 2015, he will probably go to another big club like Real Madrid or Manchester United.

“Dortmund will probably not be able to hold on to him. I can understand why Dortmund don’t like discussion about Reus.”

It’s no so much the speculation that will irk, but the dismissive tone of Beckenbauer’s remarks and the inference that Dortmund are too small a club for a player of Reus’s calibre.